boat, a PC (patrol craft), and continuous air cover kept us from trying an end-around on the surface.
Reluctantly, we turned west for our assigned position during the first carrier task force strike on Truk. How I wished we knew a little bit about Operation Hailstone. A few details might let me judge the importance of our being on station, but we had apparently departed on patrol before the plans were firmed up. The freighter that had gone over the hill, though in ballast, was a valuable ship, and turned loose we could find and sink her.
Tang
reached her assigned position after dark of February 17. It was right back south of Ulul Island, 12 miles bearing 194 degrees true to be exact. The island is 85 feet high, so we moved south a little to try out our SJ. It gave a fair pip at 16 miles, so we settled on that as a better position. No ship would pass between us and Ulul undetected, and we could not be seen from the island, evenwith radar, for it was very doubtful that the enemy could get a radar reflection from the tops of our shears, which would be the only part of us above the horizon.
Our mission was still to intercept ships fleeing the strike, and it would be novel to have ships driven to us. Fraz had plotted the positions of the other eight participating boats.
Aspro, Burrfish, Dace
, and
Gato
lay staggered to the south, at an average interval of 45 miles. Directly across Namonuito Atoll from
Tang
was
Skate
, and halfway between
Skate
and Truk lay
Sunfish
. In addition,
Searaven
and
Darter
were to the north and south of Truk as lifeguards. This disposition might let
Sunfish
and
Skate
or
Aspro
and
Tang
attack a single group of fleeing ships, but elsewhere only a single submarine attack would be possible. Considering the three boats who had come all of the way from patrols out of Brisbane, roughly 150 submarine days were going into this effort; but we wouldn’t complain, for
Tang
occupied the best spot.
In the morning, numerous planes began showing up on the SD, most of them at the same range as our distance to the island. We tracked some out and others in. There was either increased patrol activity over anything we had seen before, or Japanese planes were being staged through Ulul in an attempt to counter our planes, which could now be striking Truk. Perhaps both actions were taking place. It was exciting enough to keep us on our toes, but those men off watch seemed to take it all in stride and caught up on some much needed sleep. In midafternoon a contact on the SD commenced closing. As prearranged, Scotty dived when it reached 14 miles. A half hour later all was clear on the SD and there was nothing in sight on the periscope, so we surfaced and continued our search until dark.
Able to establish our position by radar, the navigator needed no stars this night. Neither he nor I had quite calmed down from our first attack, but cribbage always seemed a good antidote. It was competitive but not so serious as to interfere with conversation. There was just one subject, however, the details of the attack. Frank joined in, and we came to some quick conclusions: We had underestimated the enemy, for he obviously had radar. It could have been on the destroyer or another ship of the convoy that was vectoring the destroyer to us. In either case, we had assisted the destroyer by keeping our SJ’s cursor line right over her pip. We had brought this about by making too many bearing demands on our radar operator, disrupting his normal all-around search. The cursor would otherwise have been moving. The convoy commander might have been successful in thwarting attack by a shallow submarine, which would not have been able to reach the gradient at 375 feet, and possiblya deep boat if she had had to run at greater than cavitation speed for her depth on the approach. There was one other area of complete agreement: The crew had performed splendidly.
Having squared that away, we sent for the
Merchant Ship Identification Manual
, ONI-208J,
Reluctantly, we turned west for our assigned position during the first carrier task force strike on Truk. How I wished we knew a little bit about Operation Hailstone. A few details might let me judge the importance of our being on station, but we had apparently departed on patrol before the plans were firmed up. The freighter that had gone over the hill, though in ballast, was a valuable ship, and turned loose we could find and sink her.
Tang
reached her assigned position after dark of February 17. It was right back south of Ulul Island, 12 miles bearing 194 degrees true to be exact. The island is 85 feet high, so we moved south a little to try out our SJ. It gave a fair pip at 16 miles, so we settled on that as a better position. No ship would pass between us and Ulul undetected, and we could not be seen from the island, evenwith radar, for it was very doubtful that the enemy could get a radar reflection from the tops of our shears, which would be the only part of us above the horizon.
Our mission was still to intercept ships fleeing the strike, and it would be novel to have ships driven to us. Fraz had plotted the positions of the other eight participating boats.
Aspro, Burrfish, Dace
, and
Gato
lay staggered to the south, at an average interval of 45 miles. Directly across Namonuito Atoll from
Tang
was
Skate
, and halfway between
Skate
and Truk lay
Sunfish
. In addition,
Searaven
and
Darter
were to the north and south of Truk as lifeguards. This disposition might let
Sunfish
and
Skate
or
Aspro
and
Tang
attack a single group of fleeing ships, but elsewhere only a single submarine attack would be possible. Considering the three boats who had come all of the way from patrols out of Brisbane, roughly 150 submarine days were going into this effort; but we wouldn’t complain, for
Tang
occupied the best spot.
In the morning, numerous planes began showing up on the SD, most of them at the same range as our distance to the island. We tracked some out and others in. There was either increased patrol activity over anything we had seen before, or Japanese planes were being staged through Ulul in an attempt to counter our planes, which could now be striking Truk. Perhaps both actions were taking place. It was exciting enough to keep us on our toes, but those men off watch seemed to take it all in stride and caught up on some much needed sleep. In midafternoon a contact on the SD commenced closing. As prearranged, Scotty dived when it reached 14 miles. A half hour later all was clear on the SD and there was nothing in sight on the periscope, so we surfaced and continued our search until dark.
Able to establish our position by radar, the navigator needed no stars this night. Neither he nor I had quite calmed down from our first attack, but cribbage always seemed a good antidote. It was competitive but not so serious as to interfere with conversation. There was just one subject, however, the details of the attack. Frank joined in, and we came to some quick conclusions: We had underestimated the enemy, for he obviously had radar. It could have been on the destroyer or another ship of the convoy that was vectoring the destroyer to us. In either case, we had assisted the destroyer by keeping our SJ’s cursor line right over her pip. We had brought this about by making too many bearing demands on our radar operator, disrupting his normal all-around search. The cursor would otherwise have been moving. The convoy commander might have been successful in thwarting attack by a shallow submarine, which would not have been able to reach the gradient at 375 feet, and possiblya deep boat if she had had to run at greater than cavitation speed for her depth on the approach. There was one other area of complete agreement: The crew had performed splendidly.
Having squared that away, we sent for the
Merchant Ship Identification Manual
, ONI-208J,
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